Open Access

Rafal Bernard, Oleg E. Kosterin

• In July 2005, Rafal Bernard requested Oleg Kosterin to collect some samples of Nehalennia speciosa from West Siberia for a DNA analysis. Oleg replied that so far he had only seen one individual of this species 25 years ago, but asked in which habitats it should be sought for exactly. Rafal sent him a draft of his paper (Bernard & Wildermuth, 2005) devoted to this subject. Having read it, Oleg came to the conclusion that this habitat (shallow water with Sphagnum and Carex limosa or C. lasiocarpa) might occupy the largest area in the world just in the boggy West Siberian Plain. Personal consultation with the geobotanist Dr. Nikolai Lashchinskii confirmed this notion. Then an almost automatic supposition followed that this area may serve as the main reservoir of N. speciosa, considered a local and endangered species in Western and Central Europe. At the same time, the existing records of N. speciosa from West Siberia were remarkably scarce. It was known from the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region (basins of the Tura and Konda Rivers), a small number of records from North Altai and adjacent areas north of it, a record from the steppe zone of Novosibirsk Province (Karasuk), a record in the basin of the Tuba River (Krasnoyarskii Krai), and a dubious old record from Omsk (see the map in Belyshev (1973) and a review in Bernard & Wildermuth (2005)). There was no record from the boggy Irtysh-Ob’ interfluve, where we would expect the species to flourish. This could be explained by the lack of attention by odonatologists to that interesting area. In these circumstances, the project of a special expedition(-s) was put forward, aimed to check the presence, pattern of distribution, abundance and habitat preferences of N. speciosa in these areas. For a decisive expedition we chose the Vasyugan Bog, the largest bog in the world, more precisely its north-eastern margin where we could find a good base in Plotnikovo village, Bakchar District, Tomsk Province.